Statement of U.S. Senator Russ Feingold On the Arctic Refuge Provision Within the Defense Appropriations Bill From the Senate Floor December 21, 2005 Mr. President, I hope that today the Senate will side with its rules, its history, and its future, when it is time for this body to go on record as to whether it is ok to break the rules to do something that you can’t otherwise get done. As my colleagues know, Mr. President, I do not support drilling in the Arctic Refuge, but this is not simply a debate about oil and wildlife and energy policy. The debate we are having – and the vote we are about to have -- is about how this institution, and this democracy, operate. Some have said that there is precedent for violating Rule 28. My response is simple: abusing the process and breaking the rules in the past doesn’t justify doing so now. Especially when, knowing it was a mistake, we worked in a bipartisan fashion to reinstate those very rules in 2000. We did this because these rules are designed to protect us all against abuses of power. Mr. President, if Senators do not stand up to the current, and very troubling, tactics that we are seeing, what hope is there of stopping future attempts to hijack other legislation to pass proposals that can’t survive on their own merits? There are clearly members of this body who are determined to open the Arctic Refuge to drilling. I suspect that every one of us has a couple things we desperately want signed into law. But we have a responsibility to respect the rules and traditions of the Senate. I urge my colleagues to vote against cloture and to vote to uphold the rules of this institution that we are honored to serve in.

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